Monday, April 21, 2014

Coconut Lime White Chocolate Scones

I’m sure no one will be remotely shocked to hear that I did not deliver on the following Easter traditions:

1) Putting together Easter baskets for my children.

2) Taking Forrest to a community Easter egg hunt OR having a small egg hunt for him at home.

3) Dyeing eggs.

4) Any hint of Easter eggs anywhere, in any form, at all.

This a nice perk of Forrest still being too young for most traditional holiday stuff—I can procrastinate/forget/remember/procrastinate more/not care about doing things, and he doesn’t really know the difference.

I might just make an annual tradition out of what I did do on Easter morning: open a bag of candy, dump it on the living room floor, and let him gather it up into a basket. The enthusiasm with which this pathetic event was met confirms that I am absolutely zero fun and have set the parenting bar so desperately low that even the teensiest whiff of fun sends Forrest into paroxysms of joy. Please deliver my World’s Okayest Mom award at any time.

I made these Coconut Lime White Chocolate Scones for breakfast Easter morning, however, and they were delicious.

They were inspired by this recipe from Food Babbles, which I thought looked delicious, but I was missing too many ingredients to make it. So I adapted my White Chocolate Cranberry Scones recipe and loved how they turned out. Toasted coconut and white chocolate chips in a rich and buttery scone, topped with a white chocolate and lime glaze.

Truth be told, next time I make them, I think I’ll do a more traditional powdered sugar glaze with lime added in rather than the full-blown white chocolate glaze that I typed up below—with white chocolate chips mixed right into the scone batter, the white chocolate glaze was maybe a little too much. Definitely super delicious, just a lot of white chocolate.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter and add coconut, stirring occasionally until the coconut is golden brown and toasted.

In a stand mixer, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Add cubed butter and mix on low speed; stop mixing when there are still fairly large chunks of butter. Add the toasted coconut and white chocolate chips and stir gently to mix. With the mixer on its lowest speed, slowly add half-and-half/milk, mixing just until the ingredients are moistened and the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl.

With well-floured hands, scrape dough out of the bowl and onto the baking sheet. Press it out into a circle measuring roughly 7 inches across. Use a floured knife to cut the circle into eighths (don’t cut all the way through). Bake in preheated oven until the scones are golden brown, 18-20 minutes. Let cool a few minutes before slicing through and topping with glaze.

Place white chocolate chips and lime juice in a bowl and microwave, stirring every 30 seconds, until chocolate is melted. Stir in powdered sugar and add milk as necessary to reach desired consistency. Drizzle/spread over scones.